Monday, March 13, 2017

Where Can You Afford to Live?

The UK government's Living Wage is £9.75 an hour in London. This is the lowest amount that an employer in the capital is allowed to pay an employee. Unfortunately if you need to rent a property in the capital you need to earn at least £54.54 an hour.

In the rest of the UK the Living Wage is £8.25. This is almost enough to afford to rent a property in the cheapest city in the UK. In Bradford you need to only earn £8.98 to rent. This is almost affordable.

You can view how much you need to earn an hour to rent in any UK postcode area on Web-Blinds new interactive map. The Earnings vs Postcodes map allows you to enter any UK postcode to view the hourly rate that you need to earn to afford to rent in that postcode & surrounding postcode areas. The hourly rate is based on a single person working a 37.5 hour week with the rent being 35% of the total income.

If you want to buy a property rather than rent then you can check out the Guardian's Unaffordable Country interactive map. This map shows you where you can afford to buy a property in England and Wales based on your annual income.

If you earn the national average wage in England or Wales then you can not afford to buy a house in 93% of the country. That's right you can't afford to a buy even the smallest, worst kept properties, almost anywhere in the entire country. Don't worry though, if you do well and manage to raise you income to twice the national average salary then you just might be able to afford a house in one of the country's poorest neighborhoods

Unaffordable Country is a choropleth map which colours postcode areas based on the affordability of properties in the area. Type in your average salary and the map will show you all the areas where you can afford to live - or, as is more likely, all the places in the country where you can't afford
to live.